


The Music Lesson

by boopersnatchural



Series: Family Ties [5]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Everything is Beautiful and Nothing Hurts, Good Parents John & Mary, Music Lessons, Therefore, Young Dean Winchester, Young!Dean, and before everything went to shit, before sammy, young winchester family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-13
Updated: 2015-02-13
Packaged: 2018-03-12 05:19:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3345050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boopersnatchural/pseuds/boopersnatchural
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Parents are supposed to get their kid involved in things, but Mary and John haven't been able to afford the stuff available in Lawrence. Mary finds a one free music lesson flier, and they take Dean - who was excited but now doesn't want to be there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Music Lesson

Dean ducks behind Mary’s leg, the top of his head coming to just above her knee, small for his age. He peaks out at the rest of the kids running to grab their favorite instrument - triangles and drums and kiddie xylophones and plastic trumpets. Each baptizing them with various amounts of drool. She looks at John, who nods and squats down and rubs his son’s head, and she listens from her position as shield.

“Dean, do you want to go pick an instrument?”

He sticks his face into the fabric of Mary’s skirts, making the world disappear in the purple flowers of her dress. His parents had put on not their best attire, but something better than the worn jeans and waitress uniforms of their everyday. Dean is in his favorite jeans and the scratchy striped polo, a compromise outfit. He had been so excited about class, asking them more questions than either could answer and practically bouncing with anticipation. He sang Alligator Rock - tripping over the words but keeping up with the tune - to the radio on the way over here. 

Dean shakes his head slightly “no”; the movement tickles her leg. Mary sees the teacher start to walk toward them, and holds her hand up. They need a few moments. Her baby is definitely not shy, but this is a lot of new for him; he needs time.

John tries again. “What if I went with you? We could pick out something together. Maybe some drums? You’d like drums, I think.” Dean wraps his arms around both of Mary’s legs to defend against being made to go. She looks down at him and puts a hand on his head.

“Dean, baby, we’ll be here the whole time, okay? We aren’t leaving you. We’d never leave you, okay?” Dean peeks an eye out at her. 

“Yeah, Dean. Do you see those grown-up chairs over there?” Dean turns to his dad and then to the front wall of the studio. “See them?” He nods. “That is where we’re gonna be. If you need us, you just come over there, okay kiddo?” Dean thinks.

This first lesson is free. Mary saw the flyer on the community board at the diner. The two of them wanted Dean to have some activity besides daycare at the old lady neighbors. Something where he could meet some other kids outside of the neighborhood. But money was tight, and organized anything seemed to be out of reach. These lessons were close enough to affordable. One of them would need to pick up a shift or so during the month, but they could make it work if Dean liked it. But maybe they waited too long to get Dean around other kids.

Mary reaches down and picks up her boy and peppers his face with kisses. “Dean, if you don’t want to do the music lessons, you don’t have to. We thought you would like them.”

Little Dean toys with her simple silver chain. “Can I sit wiff you?”

“Yeah,okay. We’ll sit together and watch.” Dean nods.

John walks over to the teacher. Mary finds a chair and sits with Dean on her lap, watching her husband explain that Dean is being a little shy today, and that hopefully he’ll want to try it next time. The woman tells him that this lesson is the only free one they can offer, unfortunately. John tries to get her to make an exception, but the rules are the rules. He rubs the back of his neck as he walks over to the blue plastic chairs and sits next to his wife.

“So, Dean. I want you to watch and see if this is something you want _do_ , because if not, we can try something else, but we can't come back and watch again. So if you want to come back, you’ll have to play next time, okay?” Dean knows to nod when his parents end a sentence with “okay?” even if he’s not exactly sure what everything means. He’ll figure it out.

A few more parents in office clothes shuffle in to sit and watch, the rest waiting in the parking lot, enjoying the relative white noise of the cars rushing home and a secret cigarette or two. Mary and John sit up a little straighter, and Mary smoothes the wrinkles in Dean’s shirt.

A little redheaded girl runs over to where they are sitting and looks at Dean.

“Hi! I’m Lily. Do you wanna come pway wiff us?” Dean turns in his mother’s lap and hides against her chest.

Mary smiles at Lily. “That’s so nice, Lily. This is Dean. He’s a little shy right now, but thank you for asking. Dean. Can you say thank you?” Dean says something muffled in the fabric of her dress.

“Okay. Dean, you can pway wiff us when you want to, okay? I wike to pway the drums,” Lily holds up the little orange bongo set from the instrument box, “but you can pway somefing else.” And she was off.

John rubs his hand on Dean’s back. “I think the kids like you.” Dean hugs Mary closer, sure they are going to make him go over there, but Mary wraps her arms around the little man, protecting him from whatever he was afraid of. John wraps an arm around Mary and sighs slightly.

The teacher waves her over-jeweled hands, rings clinking like wind chimes. She has the room kid-quiet in ten seconds and completely silent in fifteen. John leans over and whispers into Mary’s ear, “She must be a witch.” Mary laughs a little too hard and a little too loud, and her husband gives her his patented my-wife-is-strange look that she hasn’t seen in almost a year. The class had turned to her at the sound, and she whispers “Sorry” as her cheeks warm from the attention. Dean looks at her and smiles; he loves her laugh. “Mommy’s silly.”

As the teacher explains what they are going to do today, Dean turns his head and listens closely. Everyone was to get in a circle and play their instrument for a little while, and then they would pass it to their right. Once they all had a chance to play with each one, then they would put away the instruments and sing songs for the rest of the time. 

Dean slid off of Mary’s knee at the mention of singing. The teacher tells the kids to make a circle, and a chaos of three-year-olds erupts. When it settles - eventually, Dean is part of the circle with a recorder in his hands, sitting next to the little redheaded girl. The teacher smiles at him.

“Thank you for joining us, Dean. Everyone, can we all say ‘Hello, Dean’?”

“HELLO, DEAN!” 

“Very good! Okay, are we ready?”

“YES!”

“On the count of three, we play. One. Two. Three!”

The noise is undefinable and intense and expressive. Dean’s cheeks puff out as he plays the recorder, laughing when he runs out of air. Lily and another little boy adopt Dean, standing on each side of him during singing time, each holding one of his hands. Mary pulls out the camera from her purse and captures her son’s bright eyes and big smiles with the last eleven pictures of the roll. When the teacher announces the end of class, his new friends give Dean an easy hug and all three laugh the bubbly belly laugh natural to children, triggered by nothing an adult could understand. 

“Bye, Dean! See you next week!” The two wave as their parents rush them out the door and home for dinner. 

Dean lags behind, looking through the instruments in the box, and Mary and John walk over and crouch down to his level.

“Did you have fun, kiddo?” 

“Uh huh!” John beams. His constant worry that he’s not doing enough for his son eased for a moment. 

“Do you want to come back next week?” Dean nods, the same smile stuck to his face.

John stands up and walks over to the teacher to fill out the paperwork and write the check. She is so happy Dean will be joining them again.

Mary kisses Dean’s forehead and picks him up to go out to the car. “So, what did you like best?”

“The singing was fun. But I - I I I I wiked the instumens too.”

“Yeah? Do you have a favorite?”

“Yeah. But I don know what it’s called.”

“What was it like?”

“Um. It was wike a long and a white but not like a rweal white. An an an an it make a BIG noise when I bwowed in it. Like woooooooooooo!” 

Mary laughs, and Dean laughs. “I think you mean the recorder. The first one you had?”

“Yeah. Rwe-cowr-duh. I wike that one.”

“I like that one too. What else did you like?”

By the time Dean finishes telling everything that he liked about the class, he is strapped into his carseat, and they are heading out of the empty parking lot. John flips on the radio. Cat's In The Cradle spills into the air. Dean sings along, as much as he can get the words around his tongue. At the chorus, John and Mary join in, Mary being intentionally too loud, inspiring more laughs from Dean. John turns the Impala onto the main road and takes his family, full of singing and laughter, home.


End file.
